Strangers in the Land (The Zombie Bible) (27 page)

In the end, she and Zadok walked their horses, easing their way through the last miles. Perhaps there would be herbs at the camp or at that settlement on the lakeshore—surely at Walls Devora could find a midwife with knowledge of herbs and fevers.

They had spent the day tense, their eyes on the slopes about them, watching for the dead. Once, only once, Devora saw three human shapes moving along a distant ridge, walking in file like living men yet swaying from side to side like trees in a wind. She rode on without mentioning the corpses to the others, though she suspected Zadok had probably seen them too. It was more important to find Barak’s camp than to pursue a few straggling dead across the hills—but it was long before Devora could tear her gaze away from those distant, ominous figures.

The fact that they didn’t see more was unnerving; after the attack in the night, Devora had been ready to see herds shambling toward them, moaning and hungering for her flesh. The emptiness of this country, the constant vigilance, Zadok’s tense silence, the shallow, feverish breathing of the Canaanite girl in the saddle before her—all this made Devora so jumpy that she was nearly nauseous. And the saddle rubbed her thighs terribly raw, adding an acute physical discomfort.

Now dusk was falling and Barak’s tents lay below them by the water. The
navi
saw the open sky reflected in the lake, and when she glanced to the side she saw the lake reflected in Zadok’s eyes. “Few tents,” the nazarite said quietly.

“Fewer even than I thought,” Devora agreed.

The tents were pitched tightly together, like a flock of birds eyeing with dread the sharp hills surrounding them. Ready to spread their wings in a moment and leap back into the sky, leaving the land to its own horrors. Quiet in the dusk ran the Tumbling Water, which the lake fed but which didn’t start tumbling until after it flowed out of this narrow valley and began descending out of the hills. The smoke of cookfires wafted across the water toward the cedar-and-thatch houses of Walls, a half mile around the edge of the lake.

But only silence wafted back.

Some of the men of the camp were standing at the shore, tiny at this distance. Perhaps they were gazing across at the eerie town. Towns were loud. So were encampments of tents and flocks—but towns were louder, and the men knew this. The beer-house at least, even at this hour of dusk, should have been boisterous and awake with firelight.

This town, however, was utterly still, utterly silent.

Devora didn’t like it.

“Zadok, ride ahead, please. Tell them the
navi
is here. That she wishes to speak with Barak at once. And ask for herbs for the girl.”

“Your will,
navi
.” Yet Zadok cast her a glance that showed his reluctance to leave her side; Devora wondered at it. She did not think she would be in danger riding into the camp. She was
kadosh
. And she and the Canaanite girl were unlikely to be attacked by any dead on this open slope as they neared the tents. Devora cast an uneasy glance over her shoulder at the ridge behind them, half expecting to see corpses silhouetted against the
sky. But there was nothing there. Not even a bird. As though the entire land had gone silent, waiting.

Like that settlement across the water.

Perhaps it was only that Zadok was uneasy leaving before speaking whatever words he’d hidden in his heart since the morning. For a moment Devora both dreaded and hoped that he would say something. But the nazarite only turned and gazed down at the camp grimly, then nudged his horse into a canter.

As he rode ahead, Hurriya whispered, “I don’t have to fear him, do I?”

“No. Other people do.”

“What is he?”

“You must have heard stories. Everyone in the land knows about the nazarites.”

“I know they fight.”

Devora watched Zadok approach the tents below and felt sorrow and a strange kind of possessiveness for the man. Zadok was hers. Had been, ever since he took the nazarite’s vow, swearing it to her and God. Even before then—ever since she gave him words of comfort that day he stood by his dead father. It was right that she should speak for him. “Fighting is
all
they do,” she said. “They do not tend the land, they say no prayers and perform no priestly duties. They do not trade or barter. They defend those who keep the tablets and the Tent of the Law. They give up everything for that. No, girl, you don’t need to fear him.”

Hurriya started shuddering. Devora felt the tremors against her body and tightened her arm about the young woman. “What is it, girl?” she whispered.

“The faces,” Hurriya whispered back. “The faces.”

Devora was suddenly aware of an intense, familiar heat emanating from the woman she held. Her eyes widened.

After a moment the heat flickered out as abruptly as a candle’s flame. Yet Hurriya kept shaking. “The town is full of lost things,” she whispered. “We have to go there.”

“You saw something,” Devora murmured.

“Only for a moment. A glimpse. Faces. There was a fire and all the faces were burning.”

“I don’t see any smoke over the town.” Devora thought for a moment. Had God sent a vision of what had happened there, of what would happen, what might happen?

“The gods are cruel,” Hurriya said, her voice thick. “Do they think I’ll hate them less for taking my child because they bless me with knowledge they keep secret from others?”

“It is no blessing,” Devora said dryly. “The
navi
brings words men need to hear, visions they need to see, not visions they
wish
to see. You see what God sees, but men don’t want to see what God sees. It’s not a blessing.”

They were nearing the outskirts of the camp now, and Devora heard a horse coming toward them. It was not Zadok’s horse. After a moment the rider cantered away from the tents and approached them, and Devora saw a scarred face and braided hair. She knew this man, and her lips twisted in distaste. Omri, the Zebulunite.

“You are here,” he called as he approached. “Where is Nimri?”

“Ask him when he arrives,” Devora quipped. “Where is Barak?”

Omri’s eyes narrowed. “Have a little respect, woman.” He drew his dun-colored horse up alongside Shomar. “You were supposed to come with an Ark,” he muttered.

“Barak will have to settle for me,” Devora said icily.

Omri grunted and rode beside them a moment. Then he leaned near, attempted to glance down Hurriya’s salmah. Devora felt the girl tense.

“A Canaanite,” he said. “And a curvaceous one. Is she for sale?”

“No, Omri.” Devora’s voice was winter. “She is not.”

“Still.” He leered at the girl. Hurriya stared fixedly ahead.

“She’s unclean, Omri.” Stressing each word, Devora added, “For seven days.” Actually, only six days of her uncleanness were left, but this northern savage didn’t need to know that.

The man recoiled and rode just behind them, his face unreadable. Devora turned her shoulder to him, speaking in a low voice to Hurriya. “Because you are unclean, your feet must not touch the ground within the camp.”

Hurriya glanced over the
navi’
s shoulder, and her eyes flickered with hate.

“Ignore him. Don’t even look at him. Think of him not as a Hebrew man like the one who owned you but as a small boy watching a dragonfly to see what it will do. Now imagine the dragonfly not moving, not even a flicker of its wings. The boy pokes at it. The dragonfly still does not move. So he loses interest and goes to trouble some other.”

“There are no other dragonflies,” Hurriya murmured.

“What?”

“No camp followers. Didn’t you see? You and I are the only women here.”

Devora gave a start. She halted and heard Omri halt a little way behind her. She gave the camp ahead a hard look, and considered what she
hadn’t
seen, riding into the valley. Hurriya was right. There was the camp, but there were no camp
followers
. None of any kind. Devora knew enough about the raids that plagued the land to realize that any camp of armed men always had followers. Thieves ready to pick the unclean bodies of the dead. Carpenters and weavers who might be called upon to mend a broken cart or a torn tent or coat. Old Canaanite women with packets of herbs, ready to tend to fever or foot rot. And young women, Hebrew and Canaanite and mixed, women without husbands or fields to glean, who in the final extremity of their hunger would barter their bodies for food.

Usually there were far more camp followers than there were men in the raid. But not this time. There were none. Not when the men were going to seek out the dead.

That made her uneasy—it meant she and Hurriya were alone in a camp of men. Already others in the camp were gathering outside their tents, not near enough yet to shout to, but near enough to watch Devora and Hurriya ride in. Omri wasn’t the only one who was famished enough for sex to cast an eye on the
navi
and the woman who was with her.

“It doesn’t matter,” Devora murmured. “I am the
navi
and can’t be touched. And you are unclean and can’t be touched. These men are bound to the Covenant and the Law.”

“I have seen how they keep it here,” Hurriya said coldly.

Devora straightened. She didn’t want to think about that just now. About how the keeping of the Law may have decayed in these hills. She cast the men an uneasy glance. Remembered Lappidoth urging her to take the other nazarites with her. “
We
will keep it,” she said. “And so your feet will not touch the ground within the camp. Stay in this saddle until I can arrange for bedding and a tent outside the camp.”

“Where I’ll be defenseless,” she said quietly. “Your rules are ridiculous.”

“And necessary.” Devora’s voice was sharp. She was keenly aware of Omri’s eyes on her back. “We don’t know what kind of touch allows the uncleanness to pass from one body to another. So we must assume any touch may defile.”

“But this fever isn’t—it isn’t
that
fever.” A sharp intake of breath. “It isn’t, is it?”

“No.” Devora softened, and started Shomar toward the tents again at a walk. “No, I don’t believe so. It is all right, girl. But the words of the Law remain. The Lawgiver in the desert demanded seven days. He wrote that into the Covenant. To make sure the People would never become too hasty, never endanger the
camp by bringing someone unclean back into it too quickly. Our Covenant holds the living together and gives them hope, and keeps the dead buried and still. Look around at the terror in these hills, and see the consequence of neglecting it.”

Omri interrupted then by nudging his horse alongside Shomar. His grin showed all his teeth.

“Where are the dead, Omri?” Devora asked, cutting off whatever the man had intended to say.

“God knows. We’ve been waiting here for Nimri since early morning.”

“I see. Have you sent men to scout the hills around? Why is the town so quiet?”

“Why doesn’t God send us visions to tell us?” Omri muttered. “Why else have you come?”

“God may send warnings,” Devora said, “but I doubt our God intends to do the work that the men of this camp can do.”

“He didn’t send us warnings that the dead would be eating tribesmen up by Judges’ Well. So what good is he?”

Devora stared at the Zebulunite in disbelief. “You northerners marry heathen, allow heathen gods to be worshipped in your tents and your houses. Someone up here leaves dead unburied, untended. And the dead rise and begin eating, and you want to blame
God
for not forewarning you? Your actions, your—callousness toward God and Law—these are warning enough!”

“You’re the one with a heathen slut on your horse,” Omri grinned. For some reason he didn’t seem rattled by Devora’s outburst, and with a shock she realized that she had diminished herself in his eyes. Just a woman getting upset and railing at a man, like any other who didn’t know her place. That’s what Omri must be thinking.

“There’s too much God in you,” he told the
navi
, then looked her over as he had on the hill. Devora’s jaw tightened.

“A lot of woman too, though,” he grinned. “I am glad you are with us.”

Devora said nothing in reply; her unease grew. Hurriya was tense in her arms. Perhaps the girl had a point about the men of this camp.

“I saw the nazarite,” Omri said as he nudged his horse closer, “but not your husband. Why didn’t he join us?”

Devora’s throat was tight. She couldn’t say that she had begged Lappidoth to remain behind, for this would diminish him in the eyes of the northern men, making him seem a slave to his woman. Yet anything else she blamed his absence on—his age, or fear, or a devotion to other duties—would make him seem no less small to them. She kept her lips closed and held down a flash fire of fury at Omri for the question. And truly, she wanted—needed—Lappidoth here. He had always been the tent over her, the shelter for her when her fears were fiercest.

“Huh,” Omri grunted. “At least I have something to look at that’s prettier than Barak’s old face.”

Devora felt her face burning. The Zebulunite was
flirting
with her. Yet she was the
navi
and had a husband, and if she’d had a son when most Hebrew women had their sons, that son would now be Omri’s own age, or older. What was he thinking?